The Supercopa de España

The Supercopa de España is contested by four Spanish clubs: the previous season's La Liga champion, the La Liga runner-up, the Copa del Rey winner, and the Copa del Rey runner-up. The four clubs play two semi-finals and a final across a few days in early or mid January. Recent editions have been held at a single host venue in Saudi Arabia, with Jeddah and Riyadh both hosting the tournament.

The competition is run by the Royal Spanish Football Federation under a multi-year hosting agreement with Saudi Arabia worth €40 million per season. The agreement runs until 2029. The four-team format dates to 2020, although the Supercopa name and a smaller two-team version of the same competition has existed since 1982. The modern version has become a commercially significant fixture in the Spanish football calendar.

The Royal Spanish Football Federation confirms the semi-final pairings and match order each year. The usual logic pairs the La Liga champion with the Copa del Rey runner-up in one semi-final, and the Copa del Rey winner with the La Liga runner-up in the other, although overlaps in qualification can affect the final line-up. The semi-finals are normally played in midweek, with the final played at the weekend. Recent editions have used a single host stadium in Saudi Arabia.

Each match is a single 90-minute fixture. Since the 2025 edition, drawn matches go directly to a penalty shoot-out without extra time being played — a rule change made to reduce player fatigue from the compressed schedule. Before 2025, the Supercopa used the standard extra-time-then-penalties model. The semi-final winners progress to the final on the Sunday, where the same direct-to-penalties rule applies if needed.

The standard four qualifying places are the top two La Liga finishers and the two Copa del Rey finalists from the previous season. If the same club has reached the qualifying positions through both competitions — for example, by winning La Liga and also reaching the Copa del Rey final — the place passes down to the next-best La Liga finisher. In 2026, the top two La Liga clubs were also the two Copa del Rey finalists, so the third and fourth-placed La Liga clubs joined Real Madrid and Barcelona in the tournament.

The four-team format has been dominated in its early years by Real Madrid and Barcelona, who have featured in every edition since 2020. Atlético Madrid and Athletic Club have been among the next most regular entrants. The Supercopa's qualifying rules also create routes for other strong league and cup performers, although recent finals have often been dominated by Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Barcelona is the most successful club in the Supercopa, with 16 titles across the competition's history. The record reflects Barcelona's success in both La Liga and the Copa del Rey across multiple decades, which has given them regular entry to the Supercopa. Real Madrid is second with 13 titles, including the inaugural four-team Supercopa in 2020. Athletic Club and Deportivo La Coruña are joint third with three titles each.

Atlético Madrid has won twice, in 1985 and 2014. Mallorca, Real Zaragoza, Valencia and Sevilla have each won once. Real Sociedad won the inaugural Supercopa in 1982. The full list of winners gives the Supercopa a wider spread of champions than its recent Real Madrid and Barcelona focus might suggest, although those two clubs have been especially prominent in the four-team era.

The Supercopa de España was first held in 1982 as a two-team season-opening match between the previous season's La Liga champion and Copa del Rey winner. In many editions where the same club won both competitions, the Copa del Rey runner-up filled the second slot, although some early double-winning clubs were awarded the trophy without a match. The competition was played over two legs, one at each club's home ground, for most of its history, before moving to a single-match final at a neutral venue in Tangier, Morocco, in 2018.

The major change came in November 2019, when the Royal Spanish Football Federation announced a four-team format for the 2019-20 season under a new agreement with Saudi Arabia. The first four-team Supercopa was held in Jeddah in January 2020, with Real Madrid beating Atlético Madrid in the final. The competition has since usually been held in Saudi Arabia, except in 2021, when COVID-19 travel restrictions forced the tournament back to Spain. The Saudi hosting agreement was extended in 2021 to run until at least 2029.